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"Plagues of unknown origin, strange phenomena, repeated outbreaks of war: these were enough to cause panic and plunge people into despair.But one smiled as he surveyed the unfolding chaos rending the world asunder.For this 'man,' once slain by the forces of the Tokugawa Shogunate, hate for the Shogunate is all he possesses along with newly acquired dark powers to bring it down.This 'man,' Shiro Tokisada Amakusa, unleashes his unworldly forces and spreads his false creed in an attempt to lead the world to ruin.But in the midst of such calamities, there were still warriors who put their beliefs to the test. These warriors spurred by different motives and beliefs converge as if drawn together, battle, and make their way to the source of the chaos."

The game is set in the late 18th century and all the characters wield weapons. The game uses comparatively authentic music from the time period, rife with sounds of traditional Japanese instruments, such as the shakuhachi and shamisen, and a refined version of the camera zoom first found in Art of Fighting. True to its use of bladed weapons, the game also included copious amounts of blood.

The game quickly became renowned for its fast pace, focused more on quick, powerful strikes than the combos. As to emphasize the distinction of this gameplay system, slow motion was added to intensify damage dealt from hard hits. Also during a match, a referee held flags representing each player (player 1 was white; player 2 red). When a player landed a successful hit, the referee would lift the corresponding flag, letting everyone watching know who dealt the blow. To lessen the repetition of fights, a delivery man running in the background threw items such as chicken (that healed) or bombs, which could significantly change the outcome of a play.

The cast of characters, like many other fighting games of its time, spanned from fighters across the globe, allowing a wide range of weaponry open for the players' enjoyment.

Shiro Tokisada Amakusa - the villain of the game; in this fictional account, he is resurrected years after his death by the demon, Ambrosia. Due to a pact made with the demon, he wants to revive Ambrosia thus destroying the world.

Kuroko - is the background referee who acknowledge the winner of the match, in the GB game he wield two flag blades as his weapon. He did not get a console debut until Samurai Shodown II which he imitate moves of all the other fighters. The Game Boy port is the only game where he had his own original moves and weapons unlike his console counterpart.

Hikyaku - the delivery man running in the background of stages who is forced to disrupt fights by Amakusa.

When SNK released the game for the home console version of the Neo Geo system, the AES, the fans bought it up in droves, and it still stands as the most successful run of home Neo cartridges ever produced. The game was ported to multiple other platforms, including the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Nintendo Game Boy, Sega Mega Drive, Sega Game Gear, Sega CD, Sega Saturn, 3DO, FM Towns, PlayStation, PlayStation 2, and Xbox. All of the cartridge versions were handled by Takara, while Crystal Dynamics ported the 3DO version, and JVC handled the Sega CD port. All the ports vary in quality, given the individual capabilities of the systems it appeared on.

All the 16-bit Sega versions of the game (including the Sega CD version) omitted Earthquake. Both versions lack the camera zoom, and as a result the camera is zoomed-in, which gives better detail to the characters, but the fighting area is smaller. Of note is the Sega CD version, which contained a bug which caused the game to crash when the final boss was reached. Publisher JVC offered to replace glitched discs with copies of Fatal Fury Special (which they also published for the system). No "fixed" version was released.

The Super NES version, by contrast, has the character line-up intact, but has the game zoomed-out, which makes the characters look tiny and harder to time attacks. The stages, on the other hand, are less restricted. This version also supports Dolby Surround.

The Neo Geo AES version of the game was released for the Wii's Virtual Console on October 16, 2007 in Japan; May 30, 2008 in Europe; and June 16, 2008 in North America.

The PlayStation 4 version was released as part of the line "ACA Neo Geo", developed by Hamster Corporation. In Asia and Europe, was released in December 8, 2016, and in Japan and North America, in December 9, 2016.

The game was edited when it was first released for the AES as it featured blood and graphic fatal attacks that kills opponents by slicing them in half. This was mostly due to the negative publicity that sparked involving the use of violence in video games of the time, a most prominent example being Mortal Kombat. As a result, it was decided to censor the game for most platforms, by changing the blood from red to white and disabling all of the fatal attack animations. These censorship issues were also carried over to the win quotes, and references to death or blood were altered. This release incited controversy in the United States, as many fans who bought the game were angry that the game they had paid for was not 100% true to the arcade experience, a notion which ran contrary to the professed point of the AES in the first place.

The Sega 16-bit ports frequently had the violence toned down. While the blood is featured, it is used sparsely and one of the fatalities is cut for each version. In the Super NES version the blood was recolored orange and the half slicing is removed. The 3DO version, however, was ported almost a year later, and managed to reach the console with all blood and fatality graphics intact. As a result, some retailers didn't even carry this edition of the game.

Samurai Shodown is justifiably considered the starting point for the wave of Neo Geo console modchips, which would enable users to set the system's region to Japan, or play in arcade mode, which would in turn allow the game to be played with all of the blood and death animations intact, even on a U.S. console. It also marked the beginning of SNK's nebulous and much-discussed policy of censoring their games for release in the United States, which still persists (albeit sporadically) to this day.

Chad Okada, "The Gaming Lord", states that Samurai Shodown "put SNK on the map" and overwhelmed games in the arcade at the time. President of Noise Factory, Keiko Ijuu, adds that one of the factors contributing to the game's success was the change to medieval setting for a one-on-one fighting game, a stark contrast to other games set during contemporary times.